Toyota have done well in other motor sports, why with their big budget have they not done better in Formula 1?

Answer 1

This just proves that its not always about money and big names. Its about people who click and have great communication skills. Talented engineers who push the boundries, and race car drivers who are open to criticism.

Answer 2

Toyota's philosophy is throw as much money at it and hope to win. Back in the late 90's with there GT-One prototype that raced in LeMans it was said that Toyota had actually spent more money on the GT-One to win LeMans then some of the Formula 1 teams, which were well into the 100's of millions of dollars. Well they came in 2nd and said forget it and went into Formula 1.

I think there problems in Formula 1 is fairly common. In the last 20 years there have only been a couple of teams that have been successful. They being McLaren, Ferrari, Williams, Renault, (formerly Benetton) and BMW (formerly Sauber).

All those teams are established and have been around for many years. Where they have tons of data that they have been collecting for decades in some cases which they just build on instead of in Toyota's case where they had to learn everything from scratch in the last 5 years.

Another problem with Toyota is that they want results instantly. Mika Salo and Alan McNish race careers lasted about a year with Toyota. Although Trulli has been with the team since 2004, the teams seems to be getting better. They still are competing with the likes of the big teams. At least now they are a upper middle of the field team and there immediate goal of being the better of the Japanese manufactures is met.

Answer 3

It is true that Toyota have potentially the biggest budget of the teams in F1 but in fact the fraction of it they use for F1 is inferior to the big teams of F1 as it is spread around too many other motor sports involving Toyota. Then there are also organizational problems where there is a very slow and heavy managerial structure and also they have persisted for far too long with drivers who failed the test long ago. Jarno Trulli is very fast on a single lap but can't do more than a few laps at that speed and Ralf Schumacher though once looking promising has long ago lost the plot and the will to do anything.

Answer 4

I have watched Formula One since I was a little boy... so about 17-18 years now... I love it, it is my favourite sport.. I'm sorry but I don't like Kimi Raikkonen that much, even though he is very good. My favourite driver of all time is Damon Hill, although my favourites at the moment are Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. Unfortunately I have never been to an actual Grand Prix, but it is something I have always wanted to do. lol true there would be no Finish without the Finnish... Raikkonen, Hakkinen are great drivers... Kovalainen is just good for now lol EDIT: soz i didn't mention Keke... but i thought there might be some confusion coz of Nico... he races under the German flag... but Keke is Finland all the way... but yeah another legend too lol

Answer 5

Toyota hasn't been able to buy the experienced people required to construct and field a wining F-1 car.

In the motor sports series they have done well they have bought teams and people who were successful and used them to help design and win with the help of Toyota engineers.

It has never been Toyota engineering leading the way.

Answer 6

Toyota's idea of success is to randomly throw money at the problem until nobody else can afford to compete. The top teams in F1 can all afford to spend that much, have better engineers, and spend money wisely.

The Japanese are also great at looking down on everybody else. They require everything to go through Japan which wastes time, money, and pisses off someone in Europe who might know what he is doing only to have some egg head manager in Japan that doesn't understand telling him how it should be done.

Answer 7

German politics, the labor laws in Germany favor the employee, first being that its a right to work country that means that Toyota can hire new talent but cant fire the guy they are replacing, also there is i believe a 4 or 5 day work week with regulated hours, so the team is not legally allowed to work around the clock to get things right,

Answer 8

I don't know much about the team because they suck but i heard that it was because of management. The toyota F1 team based in germany cannot operate independently and all major decisions have to go through the corporate bosses back in japan.

Answer 9

To succeed in F1, the budget isn't the main key. They haven't hired the best people and their strategies are not as good as other teams. Apart from that, they also actually sponsored Schumi Junior's (a.k.a Ralf) birthday cake! That was definitely a pointless investment.....

Answer 10

it's not about the budget

you can be a billionaire and still be a weak f1 team. all you need is a good driver who can develop a good car together with good personnel.

toyota's advantage of having money is that they use it to hire Fernando Alonso who is a good car developer and at the same time a good driver, and that's what they are trying to do. they can also use their budget to hire better engineers, if available.